While many people are quick to praise Apple with regard to their innovative services and products, a recent rumor had surfaced which could highlight how Apple also fails in some of their endeavors. The news revolves around the music based social network Ping, and Apples supposed plan to kill off the service.

Anemic Usage:

Ping was a social network that allowed users to follow artists and see posts by both friends and the artists that they follow. Ping posts would often include purchased music as well as reviews of the songs that they have purchased.

Analysts are saying that Ping was, for all intents and purposes, a flop. The social network was too limited that it was not able to capture the attention of people who already have accounts in major social networks.
They are also pointing to the fact that people who use iTunes would often either use it for the store aspect, or just leave it running in the background to listen to their favorite tunes. With that kind of use, it did not give Ping the stickiness that it needed in order for the users to appreciate its capability.

Major social network integration killed the Ping Social network?
Aside from the supposedly anemic usage of the music oriented social network, analysts are also pointing that it has become a victim of the recent news regarding the integration of Facebook into the iOS environment.
Now instead of a fully fleshed out music social platform, Apple could instead opt to just put Facebook links into their applications and it may try to serve the purpose that Ping once tried to do for iTunes. Analysts are also saying that Apple could also try to utilize Twitter links as another alternative to the music posting and sharing needs of their users.

Lesson for Apple:

Industry analysts are stating that having to axe Ping should be a learning point for Apple. While Apple does not fail at things too often nowadays, the fact that they would have to axe this endeavor shows that they are not infallible when it comes to their business decisions.
As with other companies, apple should be able to balance the innovations that they try to put into their products as well as their core competencies. At least by killing of Ping, they show that they are able to stop the bleeding and not to continue funding a bad decision.